thats not really the reason brazil does this. our restrictions on imports come because our ruling class makes pretty much nothing and rely on having a cornered retail market they can profit off of. just capitalism things, kind of unique but nothing really new.

back then, the argument was about “venda casada” (no idea how to translate this). its when you buy something and you are forced to buy something else on their terms to make it work. they ruled that manufacturers can’t force you to buy a windows license from them when you are already paying for a computer from them.

instead of selling it without an os, many of them offered linux as an option and passed the savings on to the customer, not unlike some manufacturers are doing in the us nowadays. most people got it with the intention of reformatting the machines with pirated windows for free, but many tried it and stuck with linux. we got a lot of adoption for a while there.